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• She attended Kansas State University and majored in radio communications.
• She moved to New York City in 1952 at twenty-three, where she joined a growing art community in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. She lived in an industrial building that was an abandoned doll factory, which she renovated herself.
• Smith had successful careers as a theatre actor and model, and then became a painter after suffering hearing loss.
• Starting in 1982, the artist returned to Kansas every summer and created works depicting farm animals. She lived in a trailer on land owned by a relative.
Shirley Smith
United States, 1929 - 2013
Place of BirthWhitewater, Kansas
Place of DeathNew York, New York
Biography• Shirley Smith was raised in Whitewater, KS, a small community thirty miles northeast of Wichita. • She attended Kansas State University and majored in radio communications.
• She moved to New York City in 1952 at twenty-three, where she joined a growing art community in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. She lived in an industrial building that was an abandoned doll factory, which she renovated herself.
• Smith had successful careers as a theatre actor and model, and then became a painter after suffering hearing loss.
• Starting in 1982, the artist returned to Kansas every summer and created works depicting farm animals. She lived in a trailer on land owned by a relative.
United States, 1912 - 2006
United States, born Ukraine, 1899 - 1988
